


The 6 That Stole Storybrooke

by CrusaderC



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-27
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2017-12-03 20:29:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/702332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrusaderC/pseuds/CrusaderC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>-Emma is approached by Snow/Mary to help locate two missing nuns, and the case slowly spins out of control into a manhunt for 5 newly vanished townsfolk, and 6 cold cases.  Unbeknownst to everyone, Henry is in the line of fire.  However Emma does become concerned for Henry's safety, and searches for a suitable caretaker.  They find a peculiar fellow, who seems to have a childish spark about him.  A man named Sam I. Ammenity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Bits of AU b/c I started writing before S.2 premiered, trying to keep as canon as possible. This has been boiling under for a while, hope you enjoy the first few chapters. Feel free to constructively criticism, and comment!

_Fear, like many things, can take several forms. You can fear the uncertainty of tomorrow, and you can fear for your loved ones life as you watch them suffer uncontrollably in an overturned car. Likewise you can fear for your own life, in the same overturned car. You can also fear the unknown, or fear a spider as it skitters across your wall._

_To a town fear can be a new mayor, or a new statue being placed in town. However, group fear can be cornered into three separate categories._

_“Terrorized, Unsettled, and Disgraced”_

_Terrorized group fear is when something tragic happens to a town. Like the Sheriff keeling over in his office from an unexplained heart attack, or a bomb going off and killing many people for no reason other than the perpetrator didn’t like his phone bill._

_Unsettled fear in a group, is the fear of something new, or change. Like getting a new Sheriff, or the town banning Dancing._

_However, disgraced fear, is the fear that comes with guilt. The fear of making the same mistake twice, such as wasting too much money on a sports team in the local school, or letting a very bad man do very bad things, for a very long time._

_This story, of which we shall get to shortly, contains a little of all three kinds of group fear. But it contains a stronger, much more potent fear. The fear of love. Or more accurately, the loss of said love. Whether it be love of your favorite ice cream, or love of the child in which you gave birth, gave up for adoption, and then returned to 10 years later, just in time to save a town from a years old curse. Another thing that would be bad to leave out of this introduction, is the fact that, just recently, the town in which our story takes place received a long lost gift._

_The gift, of Magic._

_And as everyone, anywhere, knows..._

_All magic comes at a price._


	2. Emma's Dilemma

   The sunlight streams in through the window at the bed and breakfast. The third week in the town of Storybrooke, Maine. The town with magic. So far the town had settled into their twin lives quite nicely, the dual personalities in some people could be disturbing. But, as their human personas were usually just branches off of their Story Book selves, it wasn’t, usually, very obvious.  
    The only crimes in the past few days had been the odd reports of magical misuse, and a public disturbance or two. Emma Swan, or Emma White-Charming, (she hadn’t decided which to stick to yet) moves the covers off of herself and pulls on a white bathrobe over her bra and yoga shorts. She looks out the window into the slowly growing garden, being tended by the fairy nuns, and smiles. There are small sparks coming off the end of each of their fingers, and it creates a bright sparkling light that seems to coax long dead fruits and vegetables back to life.  
    Emma was focusing so hard on the lovely site that the knock on her door made her jump. She settled and chastised herself for still being so jumpy. Regina and Mr. Gold hadn’t been around for weeks. She assumed they had run to hide in the woods somewhere and gave up after two weeks searching. She crosses the wooden floor, treading softly on the threadbare rug laid at the foot of the sturdy oak bed. Upon opening the door she finds herself face to face with Snow White/Mary Margaret, backed up by Red. Emma raises her eyebrows and clears her throat.  
   “Hey.”  
   “Hi...” Says Snow quietly. She has her hands folded on a handkerchief, and her eyes look like she had been crying hard within the past hour or so. Emma takes the scene and moves to the side allowing her mother to enter the small room. Red enters as well, her red hood wrapped around her tired shoulders.  
   “Start, talking I’m just slipping into the bathroom to change.” Emma grabs a pair of blue jeans and a white top from her opened suitcase, which still sits under the bed. She gives Red a look as she crosses to the small half bathroom. Snow is the first to clear her throat and talk.  
   “Emma, there have been some disappearances from the town recently.” Emma pokes her head out of the bathroom doorway to stare quizzically at her mother.  
   “Why wasn’t I told?”  
   “Well, they weren’t confirmed gone until just today. A few of the nuns went out for a walk, and didn’t come back. That was two days ago. We had assumed, well hoped, that they had simply stopped to help a few of the lesser families out in the woods. We decided yesterday, that if they didn’t contact us by this morning, we’d come and get you.”  
   Emma steps out of the bathroom, putting her hair up in a ponytail, and frowns.  
   “Which nuns?”  
   “Sisters Martha, and Joann.”  
   “Which faeries are they?” Snow lets out an exasperated half laugh.  
   “Martha and Joann were faeries who helped transport moon light from the south kingdom to the east.”  
   “Okay. Well, do you want me to go looking for them? Couldn’t some of the magic wizamajigs do it better than me?”  
   “No Emma.” Red says, from her perch on the footboard of the bed, “That’s just it. The magical creatures couldn’t find the faeries. At all, it was like as soon as they entered the forest they vanished.” Emma bites the side of her lip and goes over the her dresser, and grabs a pair of socks.  
   “Well, then it’s time for some good old fashioned sleuthing.” Snow nods and gets up, Red places a hand on Snows’ forearm.  
   “We didn’t come here, just because the nuns are gone.” Emma pauses and looks up, and Snow raises the handkerchief to her eyes.  
   “No. It was one reason, but we have... another.” Snow states, dabbing away the last of her running eyeshadow. “We’ve all been having bad dreams. About the monsters of the storybook world.”  
   “Wolves, giants, ogres, witches, warlocks, basilisks, nymphs, sirens... etc.” Red says counting off an imaginary list in her head.  
   “Well, I’m sure that’s natural. With the magic back, it seems obvious everyone would be worried about the dangers of that.” Snow and Red both shake their heads.  
   “That’s what we’ve come to talk to you about.” Red says turning so she can totally see the Sheriff. “Where are all the monsters? Where did they all go when everyone was turned into a human?” Red looks pointedly at Emma, and Snow nods her head.  
   “That... that’s actually a good point.” She sits and looks at the wall, thinking things over. Suddenly she turns to her mother, “Why are you crying?”  
   “Oh, I’m just tired. The nightmares have kept me up, and then the nuns, and everything. I think I just needed to get it out of my system.” Emma raises her eyebrows and shrugs.  
   “Okay, well, I’ll look into it. I’ll be at my office in half an hour, so if you need to talk to me, call my cell.” She motions to the phone on her dresser. Snow and Red both nod and wave as they exit the room. Snow pokes her back into the room quietly and smiles,  
   “I’ll have a surprise for you after the school day is over. I hope you’ll be as excited about it, as I am.”  
   “Oh,” Emma smiles “Okay. Well, I’ll see you then, then. Bye.” Snow laughs a sparkle in her eye and then vanishes out the door. Emma smiles again, and grabs her cell phone. Double checks the room, to make sure she remembers everything she needs for an actual work day, and remembers to grab her jacket with her badge in it before exiting her, rented, bedroom.

 

**\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**

**At the Office**

  Emma tosses the remains of her breakfast onto her desk and puts down her coffee. She looks around the familiar glass walls of the Sheriff’s office and pulls out her chair. She feels an apprehension in the air that seems to permeate even the odd bright sunshine of this morning. She kicks the computer awake, and hears the buzzing of the old PC, she places her head in her hands and thinks about the two problems that arose along with her this morning and purses her lips.  
She pulls out a large manilla envelope from her drawer and opens to the first few pages. The entire towns criminal records can be put into one bulging manilla folder, with colorful stickers marking different people. She boots up the old computer and does a quick search for ‘disappearance’. She is actually surprised when three cases, turn up on the search engine. She grabs a notepad and starts furiously scribbling down the information.

 

**CASE #006**

  
**Sheriff:** Graham Humbert

  
**Case Subject:** Brendan Mashu and Camden Corin

  
**Information:** Two homeless boys were reported after they stole some pies from Granny’s shop. Three days later and no sign of them, Granny reportedly had Ruby chase them into the woods. Investigation ensued.

  
**Case:** _Closed_ \- Incomplete/Search called off after one week/No evidence

**CASE #056**

  
**Sheriff:** Graham Humbert

  
**Case Subject:** Ryker Krzyszkowski and Mrs. Mary Krzyszkowski

  
**Information:** The Krzyszkowski’s went for a walk in the woods and the child and mother never returned to town. Mr. Krzyszkowski (the town record keeper) was sent to counseling with Mr. Hopper.

  
**Case:** _Closed_ \- Incomplete/Search called off after three months/No evidence

**Case #106**

  
**Sheriff:** Graham Humbert

  
**Case Subject:** Autumn Thatcher and Benjamin Thatcher

  
**Information:** None - Mr.Thatcher and Mrs.Thatcher sent for counseling with Mr. Hopper

  
**Case:** _Pending_ /6 mo. Investigation no results/No evidence

 

  Emma places her pad down and hits the print button. The dusty printer roared to life to print off the black and white photos of all the disappearance victims. She looks down at the file folder and frowns. She flicks open the desk again, and roots around half empty files, however every folder she looks in, all she sees in the stamp of a solved case. She puts the 15 or so folders on the desk and wonders why there were no unsolved cases in the Sheriff’s files. She looks to the clock and realizes that she has hours to figure it out, before she has to go and search the woods for the faeries. She pulls her coffee closer, and pulls up a new investigative page on the computer. She pops in the information about the missing faerie nuns and returns to the online database.  
   She kneads her hands together coming in contact with her chin whenever she needed to focus on another detail. She clicks slowly through all 155 cases, rubbing her temples. There were only three unsolved cases. The disappearances, just those three. She closes her eyes and puts her head down on the desk, she pulls her notepad with the scarce notes on them over to her. Chewing on her cheek, flicking her eyes back and forth across the yellow lined paper, and back up to the computer. She taps her pen on the desk. Connecting the dots in her head...

 

**Basic**

_What’s similar about all the cases?_

The Woods

Odd disappearances

Two disappearances each

A young boy disappeared in each case

No bodies, no evidence

**Moderate**

_What is kind of similar about the cases?_

Two cases left family behind

Two cases had a female and a male disappear

Two cases had siblings disappear

**Different**

_What is different about each case?_

The first had two boys disappear

The second had a mother and son disappear

The third had a pair of siblings (girl/boy) disappear

**…**

  Emma groans, frustrated at what little she had to go on. There were so few patterns, so far apart. Two people, one male child, in the woods. She rubs her temples seething underneath.

  “Maybe I should just ban people from going into the woods.” She thinks over her list again, and then bangs her head on the table. She forgot to put in the nuns case, #156. She groans and revises her list.

 

**Basic**

_What’s similar about all the cases?_

The Woods

Odd disappearances

Two disappearances each

~~A young boy disappeared in each case~~

No bodies, no evidence

  Well, there we go. One link gone. Emma places her head on the table and moans in agony of trying to piece together this case from her desk. She throws up her hands, and grabs her papers, the pictures and then goes to grab her coat. She needed to talk to someone who was good at looking at things simply.

  She needed a kid, or more specifically, she needed Henry.


	3. Henry the 6th

_**That Morning** _

  Henry woke up with the sun bathing his bedroom, and glinting off of one of his clocks and into his eyes. He yawns and stretches still in bed, and looks over for the time and realizes he was up just moments before his alarm was set to go off. He pushes back his covers and turns off the alarm as it starts to buzz. He looks around his room sleepily, and frowns. Something was missing. He looks around again and his frown deepens, things had been moved around in his room.

  Now, he normally wouldn’t worry about that, but he was light sleeper, and would’ve woken if someone had walked into his room. His clocks had all been rearranged, and some removed. There were no longer 18 clocks adorning his room, there were 6. One on his dresser, one next to his bed, one near the door, one on the wall opposite the foot of his bed, one on his windowsill, and one dangling from a precarious hook just above his desk. He treads carefully across the floor of his room, and upon reaching the door, turns to look into his room. The clocks all made the formation of the number 6, from this angle. Henry nervously goes further into the room, and goes to his dresser for actual clothes, besides his sleeping outfit. He is staring directly at the clock atop the wooden piece of furniture. His eyes widen and a little bit of fear leaks into his gaze. The clock hands all point to six. The seconds hand constantly ticks as if it is trying to free itself and keep going. Henry quickly reaches into the top drawer and grabs a shirt, and picks up the ticking clock. He turns it around and finds a small wooden chip shoved into the mechanism, pausing the clock at 6:30:30. He gulps and tosses the clock to the floor, where the wood chip comes free and bounces to his bookshelf. The clock innocently ticks away, the time flowing to 6:30:45 before Henry moves again. He checks the shirt that he used to pick up the clock and gingerly places it into his dirty clothes hamper. He doesn’t want to take a single chance.

  He pulls out a new shirt, and quickly changes into it, fixing the collar on the stubborn striped soccer jersey. Henry finds a pair of jeans, underwear, and socks and switching hurriedly into each item of clothing as quickly as possible. He pauses when he feels a prickling sensation on his back. His heart rate go up and he moves over to the mirror in his room and turns around to see what’s on his back. Two number sixes seems to glow very faintly on the back of the shirt he picked out. Player number 66, Mills. Henry makes a panicked noise and pulls the shirt off, tossing it to the corner of the room, far away from him. His back still feels like it has needles running up and down it, and as he turns to the mirror, he swears he can see the number 6 emblazoned in the flesh of his back, flowing perfectly with his straining muscles as he tries to reach the pain.

  He stops and closes his eyes willing the number to vanish, and when he opens them again... there’s nothing. Just the faint feeling of a bug bite, and the impressions he made with his own nails remain. He looks at his back in the mirror and can only see the white where the blood is pooling, where he scratched at. He breathes easier and shoots a wary look at the shirt lying crumpled in the corner of his, otherwise fairly neat, room. He shakes his bleary head and tries to convince himself he just hadn’t fully woken up yet. And now that he was awake he could make better choices. His dreams must have been bad last night, that’s all. He crosses back to his dresser and pulls out a plain white polo shirt and slips it on. He checks the mirror one more time, his lip raised in apprehension, but sees nothing, and feels nothing. He inhales deeply, and chalks the incident up to his dreams or a mischievous fairy who had nothing better to do with their time.

  He’d talk to Emma about it, and she’d tell the faeries to knock it off. So he wouldn’t get that scared again. With that thought in his head, he exits his room and descends to the breakfast table. Where waffles and Hot Cocoa with Cinnamon await, alongside Grandpa Charming. Henry pokes at his waffles and looks over the table at his grandfather, who is reading the paper, and sipping slowly at his creamy coffee. Henry slowly speaks, drawing Charming’s eyes.

  “Have you ever woken up, and not been quite awake? Like you’re still asleep enough to have weird dreamy things happen to you?” Charming folds his paper and thinks about it a second or two before tapping the table.

  “Yes. When I was a young man, I woke up in my hut and when I looked at my hand I had dragon claws. I was so panicked I rushed to my mother and told her to look at my hand. Needless to say, it had been a dream still. I had been running from a dragon in my dream, and it carried over into reality. Why?”

  “Nothing really, I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t being tricked by some fairy or something...” Charming chuckles and his smile illuminates the room.

  “What happened? Did the young lady you were dreaming of follow you into your room?” He guaffs and starts to pick up his paper again.

  “No... ew, and it was something scarier than a random lady showing up in my room.” Charming sighs and puts his paper down, and picks up his coffee mug.

  “Well, what did happen?”

  “It was like someone had moved all my clocks around, and there was the number six everywhere in my room.”

  “That does seem odd.”

  “It was on my skin, and my shirt and everything...”

  “Well, then, let’s go make sure it was just a dream, and not magic.” Charming stands up, and manages to instill some confidence in Henry, just by seeing his grandfather ready to protect him. Henry nods and makes a noise of agreement before walking up the stairs with the fair haired man.

  They walk into the room, so brightly illuminated by the morning sun, and Henry’s eyes widen again. Everything was back to normal, all his clocks were back, unmoved, and on time. His shirt was still crumpled in the corner, but everything was normal, besides that. The eighteen clocks stand around the room like silent, ticking protectors. Henry looks up at Charming and shakes his head in disbelief.

  “I guess I half dreamed the whole thing.” Charming smiles down at the 10 year old and rubs his head.

  “No problem. These things happen, my hand didn’t turn out to be a dragon’s back when I was your age either.” Henry shrugs and then breaks out into a childish grin.

  “Race you downstairs!” and takes off, Charming pauses for a second before chasing after him.

  “Last one down has to take out the garbage!” and jumps on the banister.

  Charming and Henry both plant their feet on the ground at the same moment, and then race towards the dining room.


	4. 2 plus 2

“Sheriff Swan! Sheriff Swan!”

Emma hears her name being called over and over as she walks down the mostly deserted sidewalks of Main Street.

“Sheriff Swan!”

She locates the voice and sees Michael Tillman flagging her down in his rusty old truck.

“Yeah?”

“It’s important.  Please.  I think my kids have gone missing.”

Emma can feel her stomach drop and twist.  As soon as she hears those words she just _knows._

“Why do you think so Tillman?”

“There’s been talk about the missing Nuns and how when they went into the woods – they vanished.  And last night Nick and Ava snuck out… I think they went to use a shortcut through the woods… they weren’t back in the morning.”

“How do you know they went through the woods?”

Michael drops his head onto the steering wheel of the car and sighs.  He pulls over and opens up the door so Emma can see in.  On the passengers seat sits an oval white rock.

“Nick still puts down a trail… but when I woke up this morning. Well, there were five of these on the kitchen table and one out back behind the shop at the hole in the fence into the woods… Look can you at least get Nolan to go looking with me?  I want to go look – but I don’t want to go alone in case I don’t come back.”

Emma crosses her arms and gives him a stern look –

“You’re a grown man Tillman.  What makes you think that there’s anything in these woods that would be able to stop you?” 

Michael looks confused for a moment as if Emma missed a piece of common knowledge.  He pauses and whispers just enough so that she can hear what he’s saying.

“The nightmares…”  Emma swallows hard. 

_So it wasn’t just Ruby and Mary Margaret after all._

“Alright. Alright. Okay – you go… wait at your shop.  Work, do something.  I’ll get David to you as soon as possible.  I need to catch up to someone.”

“Thank you Sheriff.”

“Mmmhmm.” She waves him off and he closes the truck door roaring the rust bucket back to life and puttering on down the road.

_Dammit_. She thinks as she walks faster down the road. _Something is up – and I need to cut it off at the pass._

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**Storybrooke Middle School** **8:00 a.m.**

Henry drums his fingers against his desk.  His teacher randomly drones on and on now about some figure of history or whatever, every once and a while interspersing his conversation with references to historical events in the Enchanted Forest that he barely knew about.  But all the other kids laughed and seemed to be getting it – so he just sat there drumming. Onetwothree fourfivesix, onetwothree fourfivesix, onetwothree fourfivesix.  He pauses his drumming as he realizes he’s counting to six over and over again.  It sends chills down his spine and he sits up slightly straighter in his chair.  He wished he still had Snow White as his teacher.  She at least tried to keep things light, and made him feel better about not knowing certain things.

He glanced around the room to try and find Nick – his hopes were dashed when both his and Ava’s desks were completely empty.  He realized he was sitting alone at lunch, _again._   A knock on the door roused his attention, and stopped the lecture on whatever battle Washington and King Midas had in common.

“Ah.  Sheriff Swan.  What brings you to my classroom so early in the day?” The teacher almost chirped.

“I need to grab my kid.  Sorry.”  She motioned for him and he started to rise.

“That’s quite out of the ordinary isn’t it?” The teacher sniffs. “And my lecture was just getting interesting.”

“Yes, I can tell by the glaze in their eyes.” Emma smiles half heartedly and guides Henry out the door.

“You’re at least going to sign him ou-” the door clicks shut behind Emma and Henry.  Henry breathes a sigh of relief and looks up at Emma.

“What’s wrong? You never pull me out of class unless something is going down.” Emma fiddles with the side of her pockets and looks down at the mousy brown haired boy and sighs.

“No sugar coating it really, people are disappearing, and evidently have been for years, but no one has been able to find them.  And… I can’t get a pattern.  I was wondering if you could.”  Emma clicks her mouth shut as they round the corner –

“Sure.  I can try.  But I do need to get my backpack.” Emma nods and he trots off to wherever his locker is and she waits by the front doors. 

 

She flicks open her phone and calls David.

“Yellah?”

He answers and she rolls her eyes.

“Hey… Dad… eh… Look can you swing by Tillman’s garage?  He’s afraid his kids are missing.  He wants to go look for them in the woods but he doesn’t want to go alone.  You up to it?”

“Sure.  I can be there in 10.  I’m just finishing up at Granny’s now.”

“Great.  Awesome.  I’ll call you in an hour if I haven’t heard from you.  I’m thinking worst case scenario is they got a bit turned around and couldn’t find their way back home.  But… uh… Tillman’s pretty spooked so bring a gun, or a sword… or something.”

“Will do.” David chuckles into the phone and hangs up.  Emma clicks her phone shut and turns to look in the general direction of Henry.  Her eyes catch a cork board with brightly colored fliers all on display.  However one that’s half obscured by a soccer flyer pulls her full attention in.

 

**Need a baby sitter?**

**Is family just not cutting it?**

**Cheap, effective, safe child care is just a short drive away!**

_In this time of confusion for everyone – people need to know their kids are safe._

_I’m here announcing the first SAFEHOUSE in Storybrooke._

_Any child – aged 4 – 16 can come and stay for free.*_

_Snacks, games, and a healthy atmosphere!_

_Don’t you want to know where your child is while you’re at work?_

_Sam I. Ammenity_

_623 Featherbed Road  
_

_OPEN HOUSE FRIDAY OCTOBER 6 th at _ _2:30 p.m._

_*Overnight/Early morning care does cost money_

            Emma nods to herself and stores the information away.  It was better then having Henry walk home to an empty house everyday.  Especially if the woods are as dangerous as they seem.

“So, I got my backpack.  You ready to do some sleuthing?”  Emma turns and smiles –

“Always kiddo!  C’mon.”  She pulls the flier and walks out the door with Henry leading the way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this story is still a thing but a very rarely worked on thing. But trust me I have it all planned out. It'll be worth it in the end.

**Author's Note:**

> Be warned that this will be turning into a much more 'explicit' worthy tag, but because I'm a writer, it will only show up when the characters are motivated to make such events happen.


End file.
